When it was first announced that Ridley Scott would be directing a film called Exodus (now called Exodus: Gods and Kings) to be released in December 2014, I thought that the “next time” was soon approaching. After all, the giving of the Law had been featured in every single major cinematic production of Moses’ story since the first, at the dawn of the Twentieth Century. Could the telling of the exodus from Egypt skip over Moses’ Mount Sinai experience?
But then I remembered that that sequence was not originally part of the plot of the animated film, The Prince of Egypt (1998). The original plan was to end that motion picture shortly after the Egyptian army was enveloped by the walls of sea water. However, one of the religious consultants advised that reference should be made to the giving of the Law, because the Israelites were not freed from Egypt to do whatever they chose, but rather they were freed to follow God’s laws. So, a short sequence was tacked onto the end showing Moses descending the mountain carrying the two Tables of the Law, and then stopping at an overlook to observe the multitudes waiting below.
Like The Prince of Egypt, Exodus: Gods and Kings focuses on the relationship between Moses and his adopted brother, Ramesses (spelled “Rhamses” in materials associated with the new film). That relationship comes to an abrupt ending with the drowning of the Egyptian soldiers. The lawgiving sequence is not out of place in The Prince of Egypt, which focuses on the concepts of faith, belief and freedom. However, it has nothing to do with the Moses/Ramesses dynamic. (Yes, I suppose one could argue that Moses’ relationship with Ramesses was supplanted by his relationship with God, so showing presentation of the Tablets of the Covenant would be relevant-- but I won’t make that argument here.) In the context that Exodus: Gods and Kings presents, that sequence could be seen as anticlimactic and ultimately unnecessary.
Perhaps that is why the Mount Sinai experience is not visible in the recently-released trailer for the film. Nothing is shown that suggests anything that occurs after the waters of the sea return to their normal state. No one representing Exodus: Gods and Kings has stated whether or not the tablets will make an appearance, but the currently available evidence (or lack of it) strongly suggests that this will be the first Moses film from which the tablets will be absent. Time will tell if that, in fact, is so…